Johannesburg-based management consultancy IQbusiness has announced a strategic partnership with UK-based digital operations management firm ActiveOps to offer hybrid services consisting of the former’s expertise in organisational transformation and the latter’s software expertise.

Founded in 1998, IQBusiness is a management consulting firm operating out of Johannesburg. The firm offers a wide range of consulting services, including strategic advisory, human performance consulting, risk finance and analytics, process innovation and – most pertinently – technology enablement.

This last category of capabilities will now be called to action for the firm, in light of its new partnership with ActiveOps for the South African market. ActiveOps is based in Reading, England, and lays emphasis on leveraging digital applications to implement a number of transformations for its clents.

These include productivity improvement, forecasting, capacity planning, operational control, workforce optimisation and operational management consulting, all of which can be enhanced with the use of the latest digital applications. The firm has experience in digital transformations, having been active since 2005.

The new partnership will offer clients a combination of the technology enablement expertise offered by IQbusiness with the technological enhancements offered by ActiveOps. Specifically, ActiveOps will offer its Workware software platform and its Active Operational Management method.

While the duo will focus on backend operations, perhaps their most relevant function is supporting firms with enabling hybrid work between human labour and automated technology. If such skills are not developed, South Africa is at risk of losing as many as 6 million jobs in the near future to automation, which would only add to the rampant unemployment in the country.

Commenting on the partnership, Process Innovation Lead Partner at IQbusiness David Nel said, “In this fast-changing digital world, operations management is becoming an important area for any organisation hoping to improve efficiencies and stimulate growth, so we are excited to enter into this partnership with ActiveOps.”

Global Head of Alliance and Partnerships at ActiveOps Alex Ginger added, “The IQbusiness team has already successfully deployed ActiveOps solutions across insurance and financial sectors throughout South Africa. The combination of the excellent reputation and depth of domain knowledge that IQbusiness offers with our own digital operations management solutions creates a compelling market offering.”